1105-12 New York Times Crossword Answers 5 Nov 12, Monday

QuickLinks:
Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
Solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword in all other publications

CROSSWORD SETTER: Andrea Carla Michaels
THEME: Funny Two Out of Three … today’s theme answers are a pair of light-hearted characters usually seen as part of a TRIO, with the third cohort named in the clue:

20A. Wynken‘s fishing buddies : BLYNKEN AND NOD
27A. Moe‘s slapstick pals : LARRY AND CURLY
43A. Huey‘s fellow nephews : DEWEY AND LOUIE
51A. Snap‘s cereal mates : CRACKLE AND POP
66A. Threesome … or a hint to this puzzle’s theme : TRIO

COMPLETION TIME:
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Brad of “Moneyball” : PITT
Billy Beane is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. Michael Lewis wrote his book “Moneyball” about the way Billy Beane built his team by bringing on board players who were “undervalued”, getting the maximum benefit from his limited payroll budget. I must admit I know nothing about baseball, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Moneyball”, and the film adaptation with Brad Pitt playing Beane.

5. Ibuprofen brand : ADVIL
Advil and Motrin are brand names for the anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofin.

Nuprin is one of the brand names under which the drug ibuprofen is sold. Ibuprofen is a shortened version of the drug’s name Iso-BUtyl-PROpanoic-PHENolic acid. It’s actually an anti-inflammatory, but is good for headaches too apparently.

15. U.S. 1’s northern terminus : MAINE
US Route 1 runs from Fort Kent in Maine right down to Key West in Florida.

19. Gas in commercial lights : NEON
The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

20. Wynken’s fishing buddies : BLYNKEN AND NOD
“Wynken, Blynken and Nod” is a children’s poem written by Eugene Field, first published in 1889. The original title of the work was “Dutch Lullaby”.

27. Moe’s slapstick pals : LARRY AND CURLY
If you’ve seen a few of the films starring “The Three Stooges” you’ll have noticed that the line up changed over the years. The original trio was made up of Moe and Shemp Howard (two brothers) and Larry Fine (a good friend of the Howards). This line up was usually known as “Moe, Larry and Shemp”. Then Curly Howard replaced his brother when Shemp quit the act, creating the most famous trio, “Moe, Larry And Curly”. Shemp returned when Curly had a debilitating stroke in 1946, and Shemp stayed with the troupe until he died in 1955. Shemp was replaced by Joe Besser, and then “Curly-Joe” DeRita. When Larry Fine had a stroke in 1970, it effectively marked the end of the act.

33. Ayn who wrote “Atlas Shrugged” : RAND
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist born Alisa Rosenbaum. Rand’s two best known works are her novels “The Fountainhead” published in 1943 and “Atlas Shrugged” in 1957. Back in 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City. Soon after, she gathered a group of admirers around her with whom she discussed philosophy and shared drafts of her magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”. This group called itself “The Collective”, and one of the founding members was none other than future Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.

37. Concordes, e.g., for short : SSTS
The most famous Supersonic Transport (SST) was the Concorde, a plane that’s no longer flying. Concorde had that famous “droop nose”. The nose was moved to the horizontal position during flight to create the optimum aerodynamic shape thereby reducing drag. The nose was lowered during taxi, takeoff and landing, so that the pilot had better visibility. The need for the droop nose was driven largely by the delta-shaped wings. A delta wing necessitates a higher angle of attack at takeoff and landing than conventional wing designs, so the pilot of Concorde needed the nose lowered so that he or she could see the ground.

43. Huey’s fellow nephews : DEWEY AND LOUIE
Donald Duck’s nephews are identical triplets called Huey, Dewey and Louie, and they first appeared on the screen in 1938. Once in awhile due to errors in production, a fourth duck can be seen in the background. This little “mistake” is affectionately called “Phooey Duck” by folks in the industry.

47. Dictation expert : STENO
Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

50. “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” subject, supposedly : LSD
One day in 1966, Julian Lennon came home from nursery school and showed his Dad a drawing he had made of his classmate, a little girl called Lucy O’Donnell. Julian described the artwork as “Lucy … in the sky with diamonds”. And that is where John Lennon and Paul McCartney got the inspiration for their hit song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. The implied drug reference in the title is an urban myth, although it was a myth that lead to the BBC banning the song from their airwaves for a time. None of the Beatles noticed that the song’s initials spelled out LSD, probably because they were all high on LSD at the time …

51. Snap’s cereal mates : CRACKLE AND POP
Snap, Crackle and Pop are three elves employed as the mascots for Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. The trio first appeared in an ad campaign in 1933, although the phrase “snap, crackle and pop” had been used for the cereal for some time in radio ads. By the way, the elves are selling “Rice Bubbles” in Australia, and the elves have different names in other parts of the world (like “Cric!, Crac! and Croc! in Quebec).

58. Great Salt Lake site : UTAH
The Great Salt Lake in Utah is extremely shallow, and so the area of the lake fluctuates greatly with the changing volume of water. Back in 1963 the lake shrunk to 950 square miles, whereas in 1988 the area was measured at a whopping 3,300 square miles.

63. Big Apple neighborhood : SOHO
The Manhattan neighborhood known today as SoHo was very fashionable in the early 1900s, but as the well-heeled started to move uptown the area became very run down and poorly maintained. Noted for the number of fires that erupted in derelict buildings, SoHo earned the nickname “Hell’s Hundred Acres”. The area was then zoned for manufacturing and became home to many sweatshops. In the mid-1900s artists started to move into open loft spaces and renovating old buildings as the lofts were ideal locations in which an artist could both live and work. In 1968, artists and others organized themselves so that they could legalize their residential use of an area zoned for manufacturing. The group they formed took its name from the name given to the area by the city’s Planning Commission i.e “South of Houston”. This was shortened from So-uth of Ho-uston to SoHo as in the SoHo Artists Association, and the name stuck.

Apparently the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

“Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.”

64. Burgundy or Bordeaux : WINE
The Burgundy region of France is famous for its wine production. If you’re looking at a label that isn’t translated into English though, you’ll see Burgundy written in French, namely “Bourgogne”.

Bordeaux is perhaps the wine producing capital of the world. Wine has been produced in the area since the eighth century. Bordeaux has an administrative history too. During WWII, the French government relocated from Paris to the port city of Bordeaux when it became clear that Paris was soon to fall to the Germans. After the German’s took France, the capital was famously moved to Vichy.

65. “Spider-Man” star Maguire : TOBEY
The actor Tobey Maguire is most associated with the role of Spider-Man these days. I’m not much into comic book hero films, but I do kind of enjoy the understated way that Maguire takes on “Spidey”. Maguire has appeared in other hit films, like “Pleasantville” (1998), “The Cider House Rules” (1999) and “Seabiscuit” (2003). Off the screen, he is big into poker and it’s said that he has won over $10 million playing poker in Hollywood.

Down
3. Hitchcock thriller set in California : THE BIRDS
“The Birds” is a 1963 film made by Alfred Hitchcock based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier. I’ve read the story and seen the film and find them both strangely disturbing (it’s probably just me though!). I can’t stand the ending of either, as nothing resolves itself!

5. Actress Blake : AMANDA
Amanda Lake was the actress who played “Miss Kitty”, the saloon proprietor on the television show “Gunsmoke”.

9. “Stormy Weather” singer Horne : LENA
Lena Horne was an American jazz singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne started out her career as a nightclub singer and then began to get some meaty acting roles in Hollywood. However, she ended up on the blacklist during the McCarthy Era for expressing left wing political views. One of Horne’s starring roles was in the 1943 movie “Stormy Weather” for which she also performed the title song.

11. “The Gift of the Magi” writer : O. HENRY
O. Henry was the pen name of writer William Sydney Porter from Greensboro, North Carolina. O. Henry is famous for his witty short stories that have a clever twist in the tail.

12. “___ for the Misbegotten” (O’Neill play) : A MOON
The playwright Eugene O’Neill was born in a New York City hotel room in what is now called Times Square, in 1888. That building no longer exists and there is a Starbucks on the site today, but you can go take a look at the commemorative plaque at the Northeast corner of 43rd and Broadway. O’Neill died in 1953, in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston. His last words were, “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room.”

“A Moon for the Misbegotten” is a play by Eugene O’Neill. It is a sequel to his more famous play “Long Day’s Journey into Night”.

21. Toy you can do tricks with : YO-YO
Would you believe that the first yo-yos date back to 500 BC? There is even an ancient Greek vase painting that shows a young man playing with a yo-yo. Centuries later Filipinos were using yo-yos as hunting tools in the 1500s. “Yo-yo” is a Tagalog (Filipino) word meaning “come-come” or simply “return”.

24. Island next to Molokai : MAUI
Maui is the second largest of the Hawaiian islands. Maui is sometimes called the “Valley Isle” as it is composed of two volcanoes to the northwest and southeast of the island, each with numerous beautiful valleys carved into them.

29. “Law & Order,” e.g. : DRAMA
“Law & Order” ran for many, many years on NBC, from 1990 to 2010. “Law & Order” is a police drama that spawned a huge franchise of shows both here in the US and overseas. I am probably a bit biased, but my favorite is the version shown in BBC America called “Law & Order: UK”.

30. Jaguar or Impala : CAR
Jaguar started out as a manufacturer of sidecars for motorcycles back in 1922 when the company was known as the Swallow Sidecar Company (SS for short). The company changed its name to Jaguar after WWII, because of the unfortunate connotations of the letters “SS” in that era.

The Chevrolet Impala was first introduced in 1957, and you can still buy one today. “Impala” is the Zulu word for “gazelle”.

31. Québec article : UNE
The name “Quebec” comes from an Algonquin word “kebec” meaning “where the river narrows”. This refers to the area around Quebec City where the St. Lawrence River narrows as it flows through a gap lined by steep cliffs.

37. ___ Paulo, Brazil : SAO
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

38. Michelangelo or Rodin : SCULPTOR
Michelangelo was very gifted in many areas, including painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry and even engineering. Of all the disciplines in which he worked, he had little regard for painting. Despite this, he created one of the most influential fresco works in the world, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

The Rodin Museum is my favorite of all the museums in Paris. The Musée Rodin is very special in that the building and garden that hold all of the works was once Auguste Rodin’s actual home and studio. Well worth a visit if you’re in the City of Lights …

41. Jedi’s furry friend : EWOK
The Ewoks are creatures who live on the moon of Endor, first appearing in “Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi”. They’re the cute and cuddly guys that look like teddy bears.

46. “Bedazzled” actor Moore : DUDLEY
The comic actor Dudley Moore was perhaps most famous in his homeland of the UK as half of a groundbreaking double act called simply Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Relatively late in his career, Moore broke into Hollywood with a supporting role in “Foul Play” (1978) and a leading role in “10” (1979) and “Arthur” (1981). Moore was also a highly accomplished piano player and gave many concert performances.

48. Rome’s ___ Fountain : TREVI
The Trevi Fountain is a huge fountain in Rome, the largest constructed in the Baroque style. The tradition is that if one throws a coin in the fountain then one is guaranteed a return visit to the city. Tourists throw in an amazing 3,000 euros (over $4,000) every day. The money is collected and is used to stock a supermarket for the needy of the city.

59. Hawaiian tuna : AHI
Yellowfin tuna is usually marketed as “ahi”, its Hawaiian name. Yellowfin tuna is one big fish, often weighing over 300 pounds.

60. Yoo-___ (chocolate drink) : HOO
The chocolate beverage known as “Yoo-Hoo” famously used Yogi Berra in its advertising in the fifties and sixties. One of Berra’s lines was “It’s Me-He for Yoo-Hoo!”

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Brad of “Moneyball” : PITT
5. Ibuprofen brand : ADVIL
10. Zoom up : SOAR
14. 5-Across target : ACHE
15. U.S. 1’s northern terminus : MAINE
16. “Alas!” : AH ME!
17. Fishing line holder : REEL
18. Crime started with a match : ARSON
19. Gas in commercial lights : NEON
20. Wynken’s fishing buddies : BLYNKEN AND NOD
23. French friend : AMI
25. Poem whose title might start “To a …” : ODE
26. Brings in, as money : EARNS
27. Moe’s slapstick pals : LARRY AND CURLY
32. Sound portion of a broadcast : AUDIO
33. Ayn who wrote “Atlas Shrugged” : RAND
34. Bit of smoke : WISP
35. In the know : AWARE
37. Concordes, e.g., for short : SSTS
41. More than a quiz : EXAM
42. Secret stash : CACHE
43. Huey’s fellow nephews : DEWEY AND LOUIE
47. Dictation expert : STENO
49. Yvette’s “yes” : OUI
50. “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” subject, supposedly : LSD
51. Snap’s cereal mates : CRACKLE AND POP
56. Make over completely : REDO
57. In base eight : OCTAL
58. Great Salt Lake site : UTAH
61. “Well, did you ___?!” : EVER
62. Humiliate : SHAME
63. Big Apple neighborhood : SOHO
64. Burgundy or Bordeaux : WINE
65. “Spider-Man” star Maguire : TOBEY
66. Threesome … or a hint to this puzzle’s theme : TRIO

Down
1. Golfer’s goal : PAR
2. Freezer tray contents : ICE
3. Hitchcock thriller set in California : THE BIRDS
4. Relate, as a story : TELL
5. Actress Blake : AMANDA
6. Shade in : DARKEN
7. Tool with a rotating handle : VISE
8. Privy to : IN ON
9. “Stormy Weather” singer Horne : LENA
10. Flip-flop, e.g. : SANDAL
11. “The Gift of the Magi” writer : O. HENRY
12. “___ for the Misbegotten” (O’Neill play) : A MOON
13. Tears apart : RENDS
21. Toy you can do tricks with : YO-YO
22. Unlikely prom king : NERD
23. “There oughta be ___” : A LAW
24. Island next to Molokai : MAUI
28. Embarrassing sound when one bends over : RIP
29. “Law & Order,” e.g. : DRAMA
30. Jaguar or Impala : CAR
31. Québec article : UNE
35. Lumberjack’s tool : AXE
36. Path : WAY
37. ___ Paulo, Brazil : SAO
38. Michelangelo or Rodin : SCULPTOR
39. “Get a load of ___!” : THIS
40. Kernel : SEED
41. Jedi’s furry friend : EWOK
42. Cut out, as coupons : CLIP
43. Desensitize : DEADEN
44. “More! More!” : ENCORE
45. Like a generic brand : NO-NAME
46. “Bedazzled” actor Moore : DUDLEY
47. Fastener that turns : SCREW
48. Rome’s ___ Fountain : TREVI
52. Befuddled : LOST
53. Yodel’s comeback : ECHO
54. Run ___ (drink on credit) : A TAB
55. Give the heave-ho : OUST
59. Hawaiian tuna : AHI
60. Yoo-___ (chocolate drink) : HOO

Return to top of page

The Best of the New York Times Crossword Collections